


Heaven Called Me; Oh, I Don't Wanna Go To Heaven

by MellytheHun



Series: Kylux Angst November [10]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love, Heartbreak, M/M, Romance, Tragedy, Tragic Romance, tumblr event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:09:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8630599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Day Twenty-Two of Angst November: Death





	

**Author's Note:**

> _“We all have someone we never speak of. Someone who meant so much, that even breathing their name makes your soul tremble with memories and pain.”_ \- Nikita Gill

Age has been kind to Kylo, but his sadness has been unforgiving. His lips look heavy with unspoken words, there are deep lines under his eyes where tears once cascaded like wild rivers and when he accepted that time was not a salve for all wounds, a drought befell all his soul. He would weep more for the only thing he ever wept for, but when the war was over, everyone knew better than to incite him by mentioning it to him.

In fact, most everyone avoids Kylo.

All except this Force-sensitive youngling Luke saddled him with – he’s sweet, humble and misses his family lost to the war, but places no blame. He lives with a spirit that’s feathery, just and turns pain from the sharp, jagged blade Kylo knows well into a cold, resting fog that while unpleasant is not unbearable. He’s insightful and filled with a hope Kylo never acquainted himself with.

_“What does the red hair mean?”_

Kylo shuts his eyes against the breeze and pulls his cloak up higher, hiding his face from the gentle elements. He honestly wishes he were freezing or burning or something other than static and just on the cusp of comfort. Leia is gone, Luke is gone and anyone Kylo could have turned to for help in dealing with this boy is gone. Long gone.

Rey refused to take the boy under her wing – Luke had insisted he be Kylo’s pupil. It was apparently some dying wish that Rey was hesitant but bound to see manifested, but Kylo doesn’t see why. He can hardly help _himself_ , much less this youngling.

_“Nothing. Stop prying into my mind.”_

_“I didn’t mean to,” Jardom had insisted, “The stars were setting, though and the bright oranges they’ve been making in the sky reminded you of red hair – you projected the image, I only caught it. Did you know someone with red hair? I’ve never met someone with red hair.”_

_“Enough,” Kylo ground out, dropping his lightsaber and dismissing Jardom from further practice._

_“But – Master, I didn’t mean to – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I was only curious –”_

_“Do not make me dismiss you twice, Jardom.”_

_The reluctance had been thick in the air, but Jardom had ultimately left without further defiance._

Kylo has to wonder what it is he’s doing here. Why it is he’s standing here when all that ever mattered is vanished from this plane. He often wishes he’d vanished too.

He considers killing himself often, but this youngling actually might need him and _him_ in particular for some reason. Luke ought to have told Kylo in person, but as was typical for Luke, he cowered away and died before leaving anything but a cryptic message with Rey.

Three moons are high in the night sky and Kylo senses Jardom long before he is standing behind him, but still, he manages to shock Kylo out of his reverie.

“Hux?”

Dark cloak fluttering in the air with a whip, Kylo twisted around with a rage lit in him – no one was permitted to say that name – not to him. Everyone knew that. _Everyone_.

“Hux was their na –?”

With an extended hand, Kylo had Jardom thrown back thirty feet, landing roughly on his tailbone. He frowns up at Kylo from the dirt and seems unafraid in the face of Kylo’s apparent rage.

“Who said that name to you? How do you know that name?” Kylo interrogates.

“I know you don’t want me around,” Jardom says, saturating the already dense air, “I know it – I can feel it. You want to die, you want to be released but you feel a responsibility for me and I would be lying if I said I didn’t… acutely feel the need of your guidance, Master Ren. I’m just… I feel the thorn in you. I only want to help.”

“There is nothing to _help_ ,” Kylo hisses between clenched teeth, his fists shaking, “Do not say that name in my presence again, or you will pay dearly.”

Unconvinced, Jardom straightens out his jaw, sits up more and concludes, “you either despised them or adored them. Who was Hux, Master Ren?”

Kylo turns away, physically covering his ears with his palms to block out that single syllable, that damnable name, that curse, that prayer, that forbidden and lost language. He shuts his eyes, shakes his head and mutters to no one in particular, “you wouldn’t understand.”

“That’s alright, though,” Jardom counters, “I don’t think anyone _would_ understand, Master Ren. Only you will ever know what it is you’re feeling. I can’t know it – no one can know it but you. I don’t think I’ll understand. I don’t _mean_ to understand. I only mean to help, whatever that might mean and I think that knowing why this person meant so much to you is the beginning of that. You have helped me so much, Master Ren… I only want to reciprocate.”

Kylo breathes in and out deeply, his throat hot and tight, his chest constricted and stomach in knots.

To relieve the tension restricting his entire body, he lifts his arms and pulls dark boulders from deep in the water and throws them against the nearby cliff sides, smashing them into pieces. Growling and acting out as he once used to before age and loss calmed him, he upsets the tides of the ocean, disturbs all the resting animals, uproots and destroys several trees before realizing Jardom is still there, waiting.

He’s huffing, out of breath, sweating and brimmed with self-loathing when he gives in, feeling lost.

He never truly had the chance to mourn.

Perhaps now is the time.

Kylo stares down at his hands that have a fine-tuned tremor nowadays and he doesn’t know how much time passes before he speaks again.

“He was a man.”

“Hux?”

“ _Stop_ saying his name.”

“What about his name –?”

“Obey me or leave.”

Jardom’s mouth snaps shut diligently and Kylo is appeased – he’s never told this story, not even to Leia and he’s not sure why he’s following Jardom’s lead, but he feels as if he’s got weights tied to his ankles and all he can see are the air bubbles bobbing up to the surface, too far to even break it.

He doesn’t know what else to do.

“He was a General of the First Order. He was young – too young. He was too young to be so decorated or ranked, but I never fully understood the chronology of his childhood in the military. He never took the time to explain it all. I think it pained him too much to reflect on.”

Chancing a glance at Jardom, Kylo immediately decides that eye-contact is a bad decision and looks away.

He stares out at the waters only just evening out from his attack and he sighs deeply – he isn’t sure where to begin.

He has never been certain that this particular story has any beginning. He only knows how it ends.

Kylo moved first – Stars knows the General was never going to act impulsively or do something as ill-advised as kissing Kylo.

It was after Kylo had first seen the General fight – he’d thought bringing the holier-than-thou, uppity General into battle would be more like dropping a declawed, affronted cat into a pit of snakes and he vehemently argued with Snoke that the General would only be a hindrance to those that could truly fight. Kylo was never so pleased to find how wrong he was.

Cat-like reflexes were not an overstatement – the General moved like lightning, blocked two attacks on Kylo in the midst of battle and cross-attacked on Kylo’s behalf. Kylo had sometimes thought to himself that the General was cold enough to be a droid, but he’d never considered just how efficient the General was. Battle brought out the best in him, it would seem.

Knives and blades were hidden in all available pockets and boot space, he had three blasters, all but one of which were burnt out and ruined by the end of the fire; he was making kill-shots with just his eye from up to a thousand yards back – in short, he was incredible to watch. He was an orchestrator of death, a musician who composed with blood for ink, he was an artist, an animal – an apex predator and Kylo had never known.

They had left that ground battle together in a very small pod. The General had plugged in their coordinates into the navigation system and left the boards to self-pilot – he was breathless, splattered with blood, most of it around his mouth, chin and neck.

“Were you eating their hearts?”

There was a pause from the General – Kylo had asked that question in all seriousness because the General, even after three standard years of living beside one another, was now a bizarre stranger to Kylo. His question was received as sarcasm, however, due to the even tone of his vocoder and the General shook his head, his loose, fiery hair falling ever looser as he did.

“Don’t be crass, Ren, of course not,” he answered, unbuttoning his scarlet-drenched uniform shirt, “I found myself unarmed in a ground fight and went for the jugular. Trajectory is difficult to predict with those – if it went up, it could have sprayed up my nose and made me lose my breath, if it sprayed forward, it could have blinded me temporarily, but if it went down, all it’d be is some war-paint. If people ask, though, tell them I eat the hearts of my enemies – I think I rather like that false rumor.”

Kylo pulled his helmet off, took three long steps forward and before the General could make some indignant noise about Kylo being too invasive, Kylo gripped his bloody face, thumbed away some of the blood from the General’s lips and then pressed his own there.

He felt ungloved hands grab onto his upper-arms and he consciously flexed under the hold, not sure if he was displaying his physical power over the General or if he was trying to impress the man.

It seemed that when the General realized Kylo would not readily let him loose, he surrendered to the assault and kissed back, licking into Kylo’s mouth and curling his tongue just behind Kylo’s canines like he was testing them for sharpness. His hands slid over Kylo’s robes easily, slick with blood and he was so dangerous, so _thrilling_ and Kylo couldn’t and wouldn’t be denied this side of the General any longer.

He let those bloody fingers grab his hair, moaned when they pulled and as his head fell back, as his eyes fluttered shut, he groaned out a tortured, “ _Hux_ ,” and that is, truly, when the _General_ became _Hux_.

The _General_ was clean, meticulous, even a bit obsessive-compulsive when it came to order and punctuality. He was calculating, armored and distant as a ghost; more stone than man.

 _Hux_ was someone else – Hux was someone Kylo had never met. Hux was filthy, precise and effective, but he relied on his instincts, wore no armor and he was solid, hot and real like the blood rushing in Kylo’s ears, beating like the loudest drum.

Hux was a beast – a magnificent one – he was all of the General’s grace and accuracy met with some unknown monster’s ruthlessness and insatiable hunger. Kylo wanted him so instantly, he had tunnel-vision from it all, felt dizzy with all the want coursing through him.

Kylo was bigger, by far, but he let Hux guide him around anyway. He let Hux throw him into the pilot’s seat and he watched with dark, eager eyes as Hux climbed onto his lap, straddling his hips. He looked up at Hux and Hux combed his hand through Kylo’s hair, looking down at him with a dark concoction brewing in his electric blue eyes.

“You like that, do you?”

“Which part?” Kylo asked breathlessly.

Hux straightened up, took his hand back to start unbuckling his pants and replied, “the blood.”

“No,” Kylo answered honestly, earning him a curious gaze, “No – you. It’s you. I… don’t know you.”

There wasn’t enough blood in Kylo’s head at the time to elaborate on that thought, but somehow Hux understood anyway. He quirked an unimpressed brow at Kylo, but the adrenaline high was palpable and it seemed he was more than willing to forgo translation even if he didn’t understand.

“I’d be offended you thought so little of me,” Hux continued, “but I’m more concerned with getting you inside me as quickly as humanly possible, if you’re amenable, Ren, and, if you are, I would appreciate some cooperation.”

As it was, Kylo _was_ amenable – _more than_. There was a medical first aid kit on the pod that had a salve in it that was most certainly not meant for the use they were putting it to, but it sufficed and Hux wasn’t tolerating anymore hesitation.

If he could tell Kylo was a virgin, he didn’t say anything, but Hux wasn’t one to put on a show to protect anyone’s ego either – when Kylo bucked up into him and Hux’s back arched, cock throbbing and nails scraping for purchase on him, that was _real_.

Kylo could tell the pleasure was real and he would have reflected on how surprised he was by his own ability to apparently please Hux if he wasn’t worried that calling attention to it would drive the ability away – like chasing the remnants of a dream just after waking.

He relied a lot on Hux’s body language – when Hux would make this serpentine shape, Kylo just knew to put his hands on Hux’s flanks and sides and when Hux ground down on him, he knew to hold tight to Hux’s hips and when Hux leaned back, changing the angle and tightening up around him, Kylo would hold onto Hux’s shaking thighs as fiercely as Hux held onto Kylo’s knees for balance.

The ruby of blood and varying shades of blue from just-forming bruises seemed stark against the fair tone of Hux’s skin, the lights coming in through the viewport before the navigation panels made stars shine in his sweat. His skin was so smooth, lightly freckled, small, and thin scars scattered over his long body; scars horizontal along his legs, jagged ones near his ribs, vertical ones down his arms – Kylo would never ask. He knew better than that.

All the same, Hux’s body was distractingly beautiful and arched, full of grace and lethality, painted with death, face lax with pleasure and dexterous hands grabbing at Kylo wherever they could reach… he was _ethereal_.

Hux drew out the best of it in a way Kylo was too inexperienced to know how to, in control all the while and eventually getting off on making Kylo beg for permission to finish. Between the two of them, the sweat, cum and blood was disgusting, but neither of them seemed even slightly bothered by it. Kylo only felt more like a warrior for it all and Hux looked like a layer of blood over his milky skin was as natural as a second one.

Once aboard the _Finalizer_ again, Kylo doubted that type of encounter would find him again, but it did – Hux found him time and again and it took a long few standard months for Kylo to eventually understand that there was a standing, open invitation to touch and be touched.

Once Kylo was certain Hux wanted him (though Hux never said that explicitly, of course), he made a point to give as much as he got.

He initiated as much as Hux did and their respective sleep cycles were dashed to Hell, but neither of them minded enough to stop or slow down. Kylo would kiss Hux and Hux would wind his arms around Kylo’s neck, drag him that inch or so further down – Hux would touch at Kylo’s waist and Kylo would turn with him like currents in an ocean, balancing one another and dancing, if dancing were done mostly with the eyes.

Kylo was unsure what it meant that his outbursts drove Hux to suck on his neck, bite his lips and throw him down across conference tables – it didn’t make his rages anymore frequent or infrequent, though it did make them more interesting. Hux would keep him too – invite him to linger afterward, share cigarras that Kylo really didn’t care for, but didn’t want to turn down.

The rushed meetings in empty corridors, the ruined conference rooms, the stained uniforms – all of that made sense to Kylo in a way. It was the keeping that confused him. He wasn’t opposed to it – finding himself in Hux’s private quarters was always a type of treat. Hux’s bed was enormous, luxurious, his viewport was designed as a form of alcove they both could fit in and Kylo always took note of the ancient books stacked near it, though he rarely asked about them.

More than sexual energy called that room home; there was secondhand embarrassment, there was wishing and hoping, there were sleepless night cycles of anxiety and thankless work, there was haughty, glad arrogance, loneliness, frustration, doubt – more doubt than Kylo thought Hux experienced.

When things were a warm, cozy hearth, in the afterglow, sometimes Hux and Kylo found themselves joking with one another. And neither would call attention to how bizarre it was that after so many standard years essentially despising each other, that they’d found some middle place where they enjoyed one another instead.

If the mood was right, Kylo would inquire about the Academy and Hux’s eyes would change in a way Kylo didn’t fully understand whenever he did – sometimes they would look like bottomless sadness, other times they would look young and frightened, then weathered and aged – other times, they’d darken like a curtain was shut over them. If the mood was right, though – and Kylo was good at telling when this was – if the mood was right, Hux would indulge him.

Hux wasn’t one to detail his personal experiences, no matter the company, but Kylo was typically able to fill in gaps on his own. In exchange, Kylo would talk about his training and Hux would smoke his cigarras, walk around barefoot, ask him about the merits of Dark side practices and it was all rather domestic after a while. There was a schedule to these things – a rhythm.

It never came to anyone’s surprise that Kylo was bad at interpersonal relationships – he fluctuated so violently between idealization and devaluation, was so typically unstable, but that wasn’t the problem with Hux. Kylo never actually sat Hux on a pedestal – he would be amazed by Hux, intrigued by Hux, he’d be awed by Hux, but Hux treated him as an equal and Kylo did him the same.

The issue wasn’t that Kylo fluctuated with Hux; it was that he wasn’t able to see what was directly in front of him.

He hadn’t realized what had formed between them until it was much too late.

Kylo had just returned from a planet-side mission and he’d taken longer than expected. There was a period his personal channel was off as well and only Snoke and two other Knights knew his whereabouts. When he boarded the _Finalizer_ after nearly two standard months of radio silence, he was all but accosted by Hux at the very first opportunity.

That time away from Hux was too long a time, he decided quickly – his body had grown too used to Hux’s, he’d grown too used to kissing and being kissed, trading secrets and memories, sharing bitter cigarras and tracing Hux’s scars with worshipful hands as he slept. He was eager to get Hux undressed, to get Hux back to his quarters, to the smell of cigarras that he used to hate, to the cologne that wafted from the sheets every time Kylo fell into them and to all the energies that haunted Hux’s quarters.

He had Hux pressed up against a wall, already dreaming up what he'd do to Hux once they found themselves enough privacy - at the same time, he was surprised but not displeased with the hurried, almost panicked kissing Hux gave back to him – that surge of resolved fear coming off of Hux gave Kylo something like a buzzing high and he didn’t think anything of it until he felt Hux’s hands shaking around his jaw.

Fingertips were gentle - so gentle, too gentle - those hands touched him like something fragile and precious. The turns of his jaw felt more like a cherished, religious relic in Hux's hands than a plainly human mandible. His brow furrowed in disturbed confusion and he gripped Hux’s wrists, pushing them up against the wall by either side of Hux’s head, thinking to silence the whispering of Hux's fingers, but the tremors there wouldn’t stop.

Kylo couldn’t tell why it bothered him – something foreboding was in the air, though, and Kylo pulled away, out of breath, glancing back and forth between Hux’s swollen lips and uncharacteristically shining eyes.

“What?” Kylo asked, short of breath, “What are you shaking for?”

Hux swallowed roughly at first, shrugging strangely.

“I thought – it was - you were gone and... I couldn’t reach you,” Hux explained with an unsteady voice, “I thought something happened to you…”

Trepidation quickly took the seat of pleasure in Kylo’s chest and he pulled further away from Hux, his hold going loose, but Hux didn’t take his hands back.

“Why... would that matter?” Kylo inquired.

That precise moment was where Kylo’s lack of social graces deeply failed him – he was only just conceptualizing the possibility that Hux felt something other than camaraderie for him.

His heart lurched and he felt sick, uncertain and Hux’s eyes had never been so open, so readable. He looked guilty and Kylo thought that was right – how could Hux ruin what they had like that? How was _Hux_ the one to be careless when it came to the two of them? Wasn’t he always insisting it was _Kylo_ that was the irresponsible one?

“…do you... care for me?”

Hux rolled his eyes, but the effect didn’t land like it typically did. He looked weak and shaken – it was pitiful.

“I'd protect you with my life, you know I do, you dunce, don’t be –"

“Do you _love_ me?”

At that, as if slapped, Hux shut his eyes and turned his head down and away, shame and unease coming off him in waves.

Kylo glared at him, dropped Hux’s arms as if he’d been burned and took three long steps backward.

“ _Why_ would you –"

“I’m _sorry_ –"

“This was _fine_!” Kylo shouted angrily, gesturing between them, “Why was this not enough!?”

“I never said it wasn’t enough!” Hux countered, still unable to look Kylo in the eye, “I'd not ask for anything else! I haven't and I won't! I don’t need anything else!”

“But you _want_ more!”

Hux bit his lip, stiffened up anxiously, but he didn’t refute it.

Kylo growled menacingly, feeling betrayed, and as he stormed away, more aggravated and confused than he’d maybe ever been before, he spoke directly into Hux’s head.

_This ends here. That wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to **do** that._

“ _Ren_ –"

Kylo turned the corner toward his own quarters before he was tempted to respond to his name, before he could be convinced to turn back around and welcome the danger of Hux's adoration. He shut the door to his quarters sternly and then, valiantly attempted to put General Hux out of his mind. This task was not so easily completed.

Love was dangerous, it was the fall of too many men before him, and Kylo thought Hux was stronger than that. He thought Hux was in it for the thrill and danger like he was – how out of touch with human emotion was Kylo that he couldn’t feel Hux’s affections forming? Truthfully, he felt like they both failed one another for allowing this to happen, but he wasn’t about to admit that. Either way – no matter with who the fault lied more with, the fun was over.

There were several attempts on Hux’s part to speak to Kylo, but Kylo wouldn’t remove his mask anymore and that seemed to disturb Hux more than anything else. He spent a few standard months chasing after Kylo, calling his name, asking for him over the comm, requesting his presence on the bridge, at a designated conference room, in his private quarters – but Kylo never went.

It was a siren's song.

Still, no matter how ill-advised these affections, Kylo's chest would constrict when he’d spot Hux bent over some table, holograms of blueprints surrounding him, his uniform partially undone and head in his hands. He was falling apart at the seams. He grew paler, he ate less and thinned, his heart beat so slowly it might have been trying to come to a full stop. His aura was a grey fog, occasionally flashing lightning and thundering with self-loathing.

His mind and body turned on him, making him weak and tired, but he saw every work cycle through with diligence and commitment. His temper was hot and he was less forgiving of his subordinates than he’d been in the past, but otherwise, he performed beautifully. As always.

Kylo watched him closely, though it pained him to do so. He wanted to heal Hux. He couldn’t stop the instinct to comfort Hux – to turn with him and the tide. It was so unwise, though.

When he left the _Finalizer_ for another planet-side mission, it was maybe four standard months after Hux had formally given up trying to get Kylo’s attention, and Kylo left without any parting words. He felt Hux’s presence budging at his all the while anyway – Hux’s absence was a keen sting that wouldn’t dissolve.

Kylo would feel something close to alright, and then he’d be awash with memories, images of Hux splattered with blood, white teeth glinting, and eyes sparkling – Hux, flushed and naked, moving gracefully in and out of Kylo with patience and kindness. He’d feel the traces of Hux’s hands on him, hear Hux’s whispers, laughter and rough morning-rasp.

Living still, Hux haunted him.

While planet-side, the haunting stilled for a single night - wherein, Kylo received two separate visions during meditation. In the first, he was aged, bitter, and there was an agony around him that had emanated from deep within, so deep there was no light where this pain beyond known pain was rooted – he couldn’t tell from what it was born. The second vision was that of Hux in Emperor’s robes, pulling Kylo up to him by a fine, tailored collar to a black uniform. When they kissed, it was familiar, it was common again – Kylo loved Hux back and Hux was sure of it and Kylo was glad he was sure of it and selfish joy blossomed over Kylo’s inner-eye.

The vision was so rattling, so promising, he rid himself of all remaining doubt, and left the mission on a stolen ship to return to Hux. He could swear up and down that it was unwise, that it was irresponsible, that it weakened him, but if that vision was true – if he could worship Hux and love Hux and have Hux love him back and keep all his power, why was he fighting it? Why had he ever fought it?

Well, Kylo knew why he'd fought it, but he it was a losing battle and he should have known that sooner.

Halfway through his journey back to the _Finalizer_ , Kylo stopped lying to himself.

Of course he loved Hux.

That’s why he had been so fucking _terrified_.

 _Loving_ meant having something to _lose_ and he already loved Hux that day Hux’s hands shook and his voice quivered and his kisses were hotter and more hurried than ever before. And he returned that affection with rage and silence.

He once heard anger is only a byproduct of fear. And, of course he feared his love for Hux. Fear in the face of something so immense to lose only made sense. Yes, he had been a coward, but he would right it.

Perhaps, though, his knee-jerk reaction of anger and terror and the need to hide and flee, was on the mark.

He went into hyper speed, honed in on Hux’s energy, but only one vision could be true and he knew it when he arrived, because he arrived only in time to see the _Finalizer_ decimated by a Rebel attack.

There were several shots fired, destroying parts of the ship, leaving gaping holes, but after some final, immense blast, all the _Finalizer_ burst into pieces. All was lost in an instant. An _instant_.

The ship he’d grown to call _home_ – the one that smelled of cigarras, that housed ancient books and shoe shined within an inch of their lives. The home that he’d kissed Hux’s secretive lips in, been held in by generous, caring arms – it was gone. In an instant, in a single, enormous explosion, the _Finalizer_ was gone and Kylo stood at the viewport of the ship, gaping in disbelief, eyes brimming, and heart splintering.

“No, that’s not…” he said aloud, to no one, trailing off in his shock.

 _That’s not right_ , he thought – he was supposed to have Hux. He was supposed to come back to the _Finalizer_ , storm the place, pull Hux into the corridor he last help him and pick up where they left off. He was supposed to feel Hux shake under him, powerless, and fearful of something – not the monster he once met on a battlefield, but someone who loved and wanted to be loved.

He was supposed to face his fear, conquer all he'd failed to and then  _have_ Hux, monster, man and king.

In a flash, Hux was gone, though and all Kylo could do was watch it unfold from some stolen cargo ship that didn’t even have shooting capabilities. He couldn’t retrieve anyone, he couldn't save anyone - he couldn't save Hux.

He was never meant to make it in time.

He could only watch, helpless, hopeless and torn apart as Hux was ripped from his fingertips without ever _knowing_.

Hux would _never know_ and it was Kylo’s fault. It was Kylo’s cowardice that made this come to fruition, and he wondered if Hux thought of him in those last moments, if he could see Kylo from somewhere, feel how he took a piece of Kylo with him when he vanished into the void.

Grief struck him, but so did panic.

In his mourning, Kylo turned his back on the Order and found Leia – he didn’t know where else to go or who else to go to. He defected, he aged, he wept and screamed and tore apart soil, water and sky, digging into his own wounds. He was sick with anguish, and when the war was over, and all who ever mattered to him was truly, permanently and long gone, Jardom was dropped into his care, stapling him down to the ground.

He was left with Jardom, as if his life was supposed to have meaning again.

And now, Jardom stands, waiting for Kylo to explain, somehow summarize who and what Hux was.

Kylo’s eyes open slowly, water pooling on them like they haven’t been able to in so many years. He stares into the middle distance, far from himself and what soul he has left.

He turns his head slightly towards Jardom and says, “a General, a beast… he was a man, a leader, friend, ally… he was mine, for a time.”

That burns to say.

Everything inside Kylo twists up like the coiling of a snake.

“He was mine for a time,” Kylo repeats, more to himself than to Jardom, “He…”

…was perfection, beauty, grace, danger, love, promise and desire. He was every first and every last, he was the beginning and end, he was all that was bright and incredible in the middle, he was soft lips and softer hands, he was sharp teeth and a bold tongue, he was the past and future – he was everything, he was all there was or would be…

A single tear mars Kylo’s face as he smells the cigarras from long ago, haunting him still. He shuts his eyes and he can see Hux’s smile, his rumpled hair over the satin pillowcase, his icy blue eyes framed with those opaque, ginger lashes and he aches for it all.

There is no way of explaining who Hux was or what he meant to Kylo. He was regret, but he was pride and happiness – all the contentment Kylo ever briefly knew. Hux was all the universe to him, everything good and true about being alive.

He was incomparable.

“… he was... Hux. And he was mine. He was mine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Gah! Sorry I didn't get this posted on time! = __ = I'm traveling and couldn't get it posted before midnight!


End file.
